This Gun's For Hire
by Tazlet
Summary: While attending a Law Enforcement Convention in LA, Danny inadvertently accosts a familiar looking stranger.
1. Chapter 1

**This Gun's For Hire**  
>by Taz (aka Quisp)<p>

**Chapter 1**

Love.

It will get you in trouble, every time. Not the 'being in love' part. That part is great, especially if it's been a while. However, if you let yourself get lost in the—the what's'it—the fugue state—the hallelujah-last-night-was-the-first-time-night-of-the-rest-your-lifetime rush. That sensory overload where you're walking around and talking and thinking that you're making sense, but you're not, because _it feels like he's still moving inside you_.

That, my friend, will get you into trouble. So much trouble.

How?

Suppose, you're attending the biggest National Law Enforcement Convention there is. In Los Angeles. Tough luck. Or maybe not, someone had to go and you drew the short straw and that precipitated the fight in the car two nights ago; which led to what happened in your partner's bed; then what happened on the sofa and on the floor and...you got it. You just hooked the bright brass ring but your ear is stinging where he took a sneaky little nip when he hugged you goodbye at the airport. And, if the situation wasn't sucky enough, there's fuck-all to do between sessions at this thing except eat and drink, and avoid guys you used to know back in Jersey who want to hit the strip and get laid—this is American Law Enforcement at its finest! You got your Fed, your State, your Local, and even your high-end private professionals—male and female—and, being a convention, there's all kinds of come-and-get-it in the air. Your prick can't help nudging. It's primed and cocked. It knows what it wants, and it wants it _now_. Thing is, that brass ring I mentioned is twenty-five hundred miles away.

Sucks to be you.

You're not going to pick-up a nice lady, professional or otherwise, because, don't ask me to explain, that would be cheating on your ex-wife. And you are definitely not going to play 'mine's bigger'n yours'' with some fellow, because that would be cheating on your lover.

You cruise the exhibition hall. There's some interesting ordinance on display. Imagine buying a pink Hello Kitty Sig Sauer P226 with Swarovski crystals on it for your little girl. Imagine what your ex-wife will say if you do.

So, you're walking around horny and lonesome. You're thinking you'll head up to your room and beat-off and...that's when you catch a familiar profile out of the corner of your eye. _It's him_! He bending over some dealer's table. He's checking out a way cool Walther PPK. (That's the classic Bond piece.) No way, does it strike you as even remotely preposterous, because in the state you're in, _you_ _know_ he'd fly to LA to surprise you. Now, who's going to surprise who?

You make sure no one's looking, sidle up behind him, grab a handful, and that's where it goes wrong.

It should have been a _smooth_ move. Except his back goes rigid and, at exactly the same moment, you apprehend that in a room where everyone is packing heat—hell, where even the guns have guns—you've just groped a random stranger.

There's no time to grasp the full horrible, colossal magnitude of a blunder that big, because the guy turns around, takes hold of a handful of your shirt, gives it a twist, and jerks you up on your toes. You're belly to belly, smelling that classic Old Spice, and he says, kind of like Dirty Harry would have, "Most people offer to buy me a drink first."

"I'll bet they do!" I don't know. Like the eyes of 89.4 percent of the twelve-steppers staggering around here weren't blood shot. Maybe it was something with the lights in the ballroom, or else the way he was twisting my tie and choking off my oxygen. Under those circumstances, I know the next thing out your mouth shouldn't have been, "_My, what sharp teeth you have, grandma." …and, why are your eyes that funny pale color? _

I don't think I added that last bit, but I was about to when he blinked—who wouldn't—and, suddenly, his eyes were plain old hazel and his teeth were just teeth. "Give me one reason," he said, "why I shouldn't beat the crap out you."

One thing do I know is when it's time to roll over. and show your belly. I put my hands up.

"My mistake. I am so, so sorry. Believe me, I would never ever, ever…do…done. Don't hit me. At least, not here. If you hit me, it's assaulting a police officer. Unless you're a police officer, too, in which case I don't know. Honestly, I mistook you for a friend of mine."

"Must be a close friend," he said.

"A very close friend. A close friend who I am totally, completely and insanely in love with and, I swear, you could be his thinner, handsomer, younger brother." I have no idea why I said that, except that when you've been caught coping a feel, and your face is stop-sign red, there's nothing to do but mug it up. It worked. The guy laughed out loud.

"I guess I won't beat the crap out of you then," he said, and let me down.

The dealer was goggle eyed. I mean, no 'practically' about it, I had just assaulted the guy. We backed away from each other. I'm sure everyone else in the place was wondering what was going on. They'd know shortly. Any other time I would have wiped the smirk off that dealer's face. There are no worse gossips than cops. Talk about terminal humiliation. Luckily it was time for the next session of talks.

All I remember from that afternoon is the titles of two of the talks. One of them, 'Advances in Criminal Profiling,' I got some good notes on. But the second: 'Serial Killers in the 20th Century: A Statistical Analysis' - was some stuttering twelve-year-old from the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit. It was heavy on charts and tables, and I was yawning within ten minutes. And I'd sucked up a quart of coffee during the break. Jet Lag.

People, especially my mother, forget there's a time difference. But the worst thing was, the guy I'd groped was sitting about twelve rows in front of me on the aisle and whenever he'd turn toward the guy next to him, it was like now you see it, now you don't. Right profile, wrong everything else. And, speaking of weird, at one point he turned around and stared straight at me, like he knew I was ogling him in the dark. When the two-thousandth screen of nothing but numbers popped on the screen, I escaped outside and found the smoker's ghetto. I desperatly needed to make a phone call.

"_McGarrett."_

"It's me."

"_Hey! How's it going'?"_ The sound of his voice made my tummy flutter.

"I'm lonesome," I moaned. "I miss you. I want you. I want you so ba-a-ad—it's drivin' me mad." I guess he was in the outer office, because I heard him choke._"_

_"Pick you up at the airport?" _he said.

"Oh, yes. You will pick me up at the airport, and you will take me directly home, and you will fuck me rigid. You don't happen to have a younger brother you've never happened to mention, do you?"

"_What? Not unless… No! Why?"_

"Nothing. I'll tell you about it when I get home. Love you."

"_Love you,"_ he whispered back, and hung up.

It made me feel worse than ever. I decided I needed to get drunk, but the hotel lounge was noisy and full of cops. I knew some of them. Given the mood I was in, if any one of them asked me what had happened earlier, I would have ripped his head off.

Fortunately, the hotel was just off of Wilshire Boulevard and a couple of blocks away, on the corner of Dexel, I found a great old bar, _The Wise Old Bird. _It was tucked into the lobby of one of the old office buildings and what I mean by a great bar is one where there are lots of high-back booths, and no television. Somewhere you can sit quietly, and hear yourself think. I staked out a booth in back where it was darkest, ordered a Johnny Walker Blue, and settled down to sulk in style. If there had been a juke box, I would have been fed it quarters, and played Springsteen.

Problem was the waitress came back with a carafe of water, and a partial bottle of some kind whiskey that I didn't recognize. I don't know everything about whiskey, but I do know that when the name begins with 'Mac' it's too expensive for Danny. The JWB was already above my price point. There were two glasses on the tray, and I was starting to explain that she'd gotten the wrong order when Guess Who slipped into the other side of the booth. The waitress put the tray down and escaped

Damn, if he didn't even have that little scrintch between his eyes.

While I was giving him my best eastside glare, he shrugged and poured an inch of whiskey into one of the glasses. "Try this," he said. "You'll feel better."

Funny guy, huh? Didn't make me laugh.

I said, "What do you want?"

"I was hoping that you'd let me apologize."

"For what? Stealing my lines?"

"You made a mistake. I overreacted."

I was about to tell him to get lost. And then he smiled, and I recognized the smile. That smile is more contagious than the measles. I grabbed the glass in front of me and tossed it back. Whatever was in it scorched the lining off my tongue. It burned like fire all the way down.

He enjoyed me sputtering around for a bit, then said, "You okay? You don't gulp single malt."

"What the ever-loving-hell, was that?"

"Macallan. The 25. You sip it. Here..." He filled my glass again, and topped it with water. "A drop of water brings out the violet and rose petal notes in the liquor."

"Don't push your luck, Mister—"

"St. John."

"I wasn't asking. Why did you follow me? You want to have that fight now?"

"I didn't follow you…"

"Listen, Mister—"

"St. John." He smiled again. "Mick St. John."

"Danny Williams."

"New York?"

"New Jersey." My mother taught me manners and it just came out. "I asked you what you why you followed me."

"I was wondering if you had a picture."

"A picture?"

"Of my fatter, uglier," his mouth twitched, "_older_ brother. If you do, I'd like to see it."

So what if he didn't believe me? I dug out my phone, pulled up a shot I'd taken the last time we were at the firing range and handed it over. I did it to shut him up, but it didn't work. The squinch between his eyes got sharper, he tilted his head—funny how his nostrils kind of quivered. "Who's is he?"

"McGarrett. Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-0. My partner."

He mouthed the name, tasting it, and says, "Hawaii's a ways away from New Jersey."

"As it happens, my ex-wife and daughter live in that pineapple infested hell-hole. Perforce, so do I."

"Hell hath its compensations," he said. "What's Five-0?"

"The Governor of Hawaii's very own personal, very special, exclusive task-force."

"I'm impressed." he said.

"Don't be," I said, and, right then, I should have realized that I still wasn't firing on all cylinders. Blame it on jet-lag, the single malt, or me thinking McGarrett would never let his hair get long enought to brush his collar that way. I was distracted until St. John held up a shot of Kono walking out of the ocean with her board. He raises his eyebrow and goes, "Hot-cha!" The bastard had been clicking through my files!

"Gimme that!" I grabbed the phone back and stuck it in my shirt pocket. "Those are personal!"

"So I noticed," he said.

I engaged my patented Destruct-O-ray. He paid me never mind, just stared into the distance as if he were sorting out something in his head. "I've been to Hawaii," he said. "Not recently, though…" I decided this dork bore absolutely no resemblance McGarrett, after all. "My parents…I think, maybe, that's where they met."

"You don't know where your parents met? I know the name of the band that played at the sock-hop where my parents met in the tenth grade." Hell, yeah, I was being snotty.

"No, I don't know." He scowled and the resemblance hauled off and punched me in the gut again. "My parents weren't big on reminiscing. My father was in the Navy during the war and when he got back they fell on some hard times."

Fair enough. But, since he'd brought it up, I said, "What a coincidence; my friend's whole family is Navy from way back. His Grandfather died on the Arizona, but I know his father got around…" Considering Steve worships the ground Jack McGarrett walked on, I shouldn't have been implying what I was implying, but…obvious conclusions are obvious.

St. John started laughing. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, let me assure you." He draws a circle around his face and points to the pocket where I stuffed my phone. "No way this face and your partner's are anything but a fluke. Everyone's got a double somewhere. It looks like him and me—we're both stuck with some hellacious stubborn Scotch-Irish genes."

I snorted. "It could be worse."

"It could a whole lot worse," Mr. Modest said and, for some resaon, we both started laughing. By the time I was wiping my eyes, I was done being mad at him, or at least I was done being mad at the world.

St. John's eyes had that faraway look again. I wondered what he was thinking about, but I'm glad I didn't ask. He might have told me. We split the last of the bottle between us and, as we touched glasses, the waitress popped out of nowhere.

"Will you be ordering dinner tonight, Mr. St. John," she said. "Or would like me to bring another bottle?"

St. John looked at me. I shook my head no.

"I guess not, Margie. Thanks."

She went away and he stood up. "Come on upstairs with me, if you've got minute. I do have the Glenmorangie. You'll like it."

"Upstairs?"

"My office. I'm a private investigator."

Well, that accounted for a few things. What it doesn't account for is why I went with him, except the guy, clearly, had nothing but the finest taste in booze. That, and for the first time since I'd gotten on that eastbound, I didn't feel half of me had been ripped away. I was ready to get mellow. What I should have remembered was the advice my cousin Joey gave me instead of a present on my fourteenth birthday. He said it would help me get laid, and that was a thing I urgently wanted know about. He told me that no girl's hotter to trot than a girl who just did. I had to wait two more years, but he was right. I found out for myself a few more years after that, that it's almost as true for guys.


	2. Chapter 2

This Gun's For Hire: Chapter 2

By the time I'd retrieved my coat and caught up with him, St. John was almost out the door. "What about the check?"

"I have an account," he said, and grinned at my raised eyebrow. "This is L. A. If a potential client's uncomfortable, and doesn't want to be spotted going into a PI's office, I meet them here. After a drink or two, in any event, and they're more likely to relax and tell me what's really going on."

"Oh." It made sense.

I'd come in from the street entrance, but St. John knew a back hallway lined with autographed photos of movie stars all the way back to the 40's, and that let us into the lobby near the elevator banks.

You could tell what a grand old lady the building had been in its day. The lobby was red and gold marble columns, and the polished brass dials over the elevator doors looked like the top of the Chrysler Building. While we were zipping up and up and up, St. John asked me if I disapproved so much, how I'd wound up working for Five-0.

I told him it wasn't that I disproved as much I resented that the governor tended to act as if we were her private police force. Not to mention I'd been shanghaied.

Then the elevator doors opened. Sometimes, with these old buildings, it's a mess where it doesn't show. This one, someone had dropped the bomb to fix up. There were new walls, recessed lights and frosted glass doors. It all went with what I'd seen downstairs. Everything was retro except the paintings hanging on the walls. Those looked ironic, where ironic is another word for expensive.

I knew we were up high, possibly under the building's spire, from the short length of the hall and that there were only four doors. 'Mick St. John, Private Investigations' was etched into the glass of the one at the end but St. John surprised me by using his clicker on the one on the right. Soft lights came on as we entered, but I couldn't see much until St. John said, "Hang on," and draped his jacket over the back of a chair. He went around raising the window shades, and I this was his home. I went and looked out the windows to see how high up we were. I could see the ocean to the west, with a band of dark orange spreading across the horizon. Above us, the sky was velvet black. Lights were coming on in the skyscrapers all around.

I whistled. "Talk about living over the shop."

St. John's smile lit up. That was when I noticed the little silver chain he wore around his neck. It flowed over his collarbone and disappeared beneath the neck of the cream colored Henley he was wearing. I also noticed how nicely the Henley fit across his shoulders.

"Ready to try the Glenmorangie?" he said.

"Please," I said. "If it's as good as the Mccallan; maybe…" _…maybe, _I thought, _this could get interesting._

"I hope so," St. John said. "Take your coat off and make yourself comfortable."

He was cracking open the bottle, so I took a quick look around. It was a large apartment, even with the old walls taken down but it was one of the coolest places I've ever seen.

Back in the day, it was probably utility space for the penthouses. (I was right about being under the spire; you could tell from the skylights and the angled ceiling.) The kitchen took up one whole corner. It was all stainless steel and glass, with the oven and sink standing in an island. Efficient, even if it didn't look like he cooked much. The dining table was in the center, conveniently adjacent to a conversation area that was defined by a leather sofa and two comfy chairs surrounding a coffee table. Most of the wall space opposite was filled with diagonal bookshelves. The highlight of the whole thing was an open fireplace, between the conversation area and the bookshelves. The original wall beams had been left in place and two of them framed a firebox tiled in deep red. A drift of tempered glass nuggets covered the fire bar, so that when St. John turned it on, and he did, it looked like flames dancing over a snow bank. Throw in some expensive looking art and the geometric frieze that ran around the top of the walls…all I can say is that private investigating pays better than police work.

"Here you go." He brought the drinks over and put them down on the coffee table. "Don't be put off by the initial astringent orange taste. I'm told it has a fabulously unctuous length at the finish."

"Uh…yeah," I said. I mean, I thought we were talking about whiskey, but I wasn't entirely sure. Thank God he was screwing himself into the corner of the sofa and wasn't looking at my face. I made a point of taking one of the chairs.

"So," St. John saluted me with his glass. "What did you mean when you said you were shanghaied into Five-0?"

I'll give the guy one thing, he never lost track of a thread. The trouble was that answering that particular question required explaining about McGarrett and me drawing down on each other at the scene of his father's murder.

Some ways it's funny but, other ways…not so much. That led to talking about things we'd found out about Jack McGarrett's career. Nothing pertinent to the ongoing investigation, of course, but stuff that Jack had done in the course of his career before joining HPD. That led to talking about the Navy, which led to talking about Steve being a SEAL, which led to Steve's grandfather's death on the Arizona.

Another thing I'll give St. John is he didn't interrupt or ask irrelevant questions. He sat there and listened while I talked. I knew he was paying attention but the most I'd catch was a darkening of his eyes or a slight flare of his nostrils. At one point, he was topping off my drink, he said that McGarrett sounded gung-ho. I said if that meant he was a human pit-bull; damn straight! But that's what makes him good at the job! I said grenades were still inappropriate in police work. St. John agreed with me. Then, of course, I had to explain how McGarrett's just a little shaky on due process, but we're working on it. (St. John was polite. He pretended to be coughing.) Don't ask me how I got started on the cargo pants. Don't get me wrong, McGarrett cleans up nicely; seeing him in uniform is to know that the gods still walk among us. I don't see how I could have helped it. Out of uniform, Steve's strictly for comfort. (That's me being polite about the collection of cleaning rags he calls t-shirts.) St.

John sat tucked into his corner across from me, and listened. And that cream colored Henley I mentioned, earlier was only a little paler than his skin. At one point he pushed the sleeves up, and leaned back with his hands locked behind his head, and stretched like a cat. I realized I'd just done that! He was mirroring me! I smiled. He smiled. No wonder I was talking my head off. Remember what I said about the measles? There was no doubt in my mind that St. John had caught them, too, and I didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, I was trying to work out how to negotiate the distance between us, when the phone rang.

At least, St. John cocked his head, and said, "I have to take this."

I swear I didn't hear it ring. He must have turned the ringer off, and heard the answering machine pick up.

He got up and walked through the painting on the wall.

I stared at where he'd disappeared, and got up and followed. No, he hadn't walked through the painting. It was actually a divider between his apartment and his office, and he;d simply slipped around it. Duh! I just hadn't noticed. There was another painting hanging on the other side. More irony.

St. John was reassuring someone. "Then it was an accident, Guillermo, call a doctor… Oh… Then tell him to call the cleaner… No? Okay. Okay, calm down…"He rolled his eyes at whatever the guy was saying, covered the mouth piece and, to me, said, "Get yourself another drink. This is going to take a minute."

I can take a hint; client confidentiality. Would the _Enquirer_ headline he was scotching have read, _Tinsel Town Scandal!_ He didn't particularly lower his voice, though. I heard him say, "Oh, yeah, and how am I your go-to guy, all of a sudden? If you want a favor, ask!"

Now that I'd been alerted to how sneaky things where in that place, I took a closer look around, and caught on that there was a loft. I should have guessed from the angle of the skylights but the staircase was cantilevered steps attached to the wall. That made it almost invisible, like the office door. I took a few steps up. The doors up there were closed so I came down. You never stop being a cop and, I admit, I was wondering where the bedroom was.

St. John had gotten rid of his client, but I could hear him leaving a message for someone named Josef. I went to have a closer look the the other wall. It was fitted with diagonal cubby holes. It was neat the way his books and stuff fitted. It occured to me that I could adapt the concept for my chicken coop back in Honolulu.

The books were mostly technical stuff, art, philosophy and 20th century novels: everything from Henry Miller to Joseph Heller to Salman Rushdie. I'd already spotted an iPod dock, but he collected music on vinyl as well as disks. He was heavily into old Jazz and Swing and there wasn't a serious guitarist in the last sixty years that he didn't listen to: Johnson, Epps, Reinhardt, Durham, Vaughn, Page, Cooder, Hendrix, Grisman and Garcia, of course. Movies, though… If it gives you an idea, he still had movies on Betamax. (That was my folk's first machine.) There was _Gunga Din, All Quiet on the Western Front, Day at the Races, Night at the Opera, Red Headed Woman, China Doll, Casablanca…_ Nothing but old classics. I heard the printer going. Over the sound of it, I said, "It looks like you're supporting TCM singlehanded?"

"What?"

"You like old moves," I said, as I flipped through them. Titles were moving up the decades, slowly.

"Yes, I do. My first crush was on Jean Harlow."

"Mine was on Julia Roberts." Speaking of which, he had _Ocean's Eleven_. Don't get excited, it was the original _Ocean's Eleven_.

"Too skinny."

"At least she's alive."

"You prejudiced against the vitally challenged?"

"No. I just don't see myself picking up my dates at the morgue."

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

"Aha!" I said, uncovering a very revealing group of titles. "I knew it!"

St. John peered around the edge of the door frame. "What?"

"You like vampire movies," I said. "_Dracula_, _Fright Night, From Dusk Till Dawn, _and…" I waved the box at him, "_Buffy the Vampire Slayer!_"

He rolled his eyes, and said, "If that's an example of your detective skills, detect some music. I'm almost done here."

Yeah. _Right_. The phone rang, again (I heard it this time.) and I heard him say, "Hey, thanks for calling back…yeah, Guillermo's got a situation, and I need you to look up some information in a hurry…" Then he lowered his voice. Not that that would have stopped me eavesdropping, but I'd turned on the iPod. It was what you'd expect, guitar chords; then a high tenor whining,_ Are you goin' to Scarborough Fair_… Seriously, Simon and Garfunkle.

It wouldn't have been my personal choice, but I didn't have time to look for another track. There was a photo album on the shelf next to the speakers and, despite St. John as good as having given me permission to snoop, he was going to be done with that call eventually and I didn't want him catching me flipping through his family album. Which is what it had to be. It went back quiet a ways, too. Some of the photos were sepia toned, and there was a wedding portrait that looked like it had been colored by hand with pastels. Great-grandparents, maybe. You could tell another was them as a middle-aged couple standing on an unpainted porch. There was also a little kid sitting on a wheeled horse. The blue ink said _Mick's 4__th__ birthday._ And I'd have put money on it being the same little kid, all grown up, in a World War 2 Army uniform.

It had to be St. John's grandfather. He was right about the genes. Even that young, and with that underfed '40s look, you could see the family resemblance. I flipped to the back, looking for pictures of St. John, but most of the recent ones were a little blonde chickie with a case of terminal cuteness.

"But you'll do it for me, won't you…?" I could still hear St. John on the phone, massaging someone's ego "Tonight. Yes, please. Thank you, Josef. Thank you…I know; you'll send me the bill."

The only photo I found of St. John, he was with some guy, and each of them had an arm around the other. They were grinning like loons at the lens. Both of them were had hold of the camera, like it was their very first one, and they'd been squabbling over it.

That was it, and was nothing to do but fix myself another drink, except I was starting to wish I'd taken him up on dinner. I put the album back and went to check out the fridge. Beer, wine, seltzer, capers, olives cocktail onions and a couple of blood samples. In other words a typical bachelor PI's refrigerator.

St. John finally came wandering back. "Sorry that took so long," he said, pulling the Henley off over his head.

"Is there anything to eat around here?" As I said, I was starting to think about dinner.

"I was thinking about you," he said, dropping the Henley on the floor and toeing his shoes off. "But we could send out for a pizza."

I managed to hoist my jaw off the floor by the time he was shucking his shorts. (He wasn't circumcised, by the way.)

"Mick St. John," I said, "you're trying to seduce me…" All right, Paul Simon was going _Koo-koo-ka-choo_ in the background and I was never going to get an opportunity like that again in this life.

"Yes," he said, "I am. What are you going to do about it?"

He stretched out on the sofa and If he'd been a cat, there would have been a little yellow feather sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

The smug bastard as much as forced me to go over there and kiss him.

It was good.

Not, thank heaven, _You've pissed me off for the last time! Pow! Bam! Suddenly we're sucking the breath out of each other's lungs!_ Not that kind of good. (That was McGarrett's and my first kiss and, excuse me, in addition to everything else, I had bruises from where my shoulder impacted the Mercury's door frame for days.) It was good enough, though. I was surprised at how cool his mouth was.

While I was preoccupied with the way his tongue was teasing mine, not to mention the sensations fizzing through my personal anatomy, he took hold of my tie and wound it around his fist. He took me down to his level, and I didn't fight.

That was the difference. Neither of us fought.

That first time with McGarrett had been building up for months, waiting for the spark. When it exploded, I gave him what he needed. And that's the way it's going to be; he needs to be on top, he'll be on top; he wants to me to suck him off, I'll give it to him hard and fast. We both know, deep down, that one of these days he's going to hand it back to me in a box with a bow on. You think my baby's got trust issues? I think he's got the five volume hard-bound edition. But it's okay.

St. John didn't bring his issues to bed—pardon me—he didn't bring his issues to the sofa, but he brought an unholy amount of skill. Look, I admit I'm a little challenged height-wise but, compared to most men, I'm strong, and I know it. St. John tugged on my tie. I lost my balance. He caught me, and rolled me over on the couch. He undid my tie, my shirt and the buttons on my pants and, now, I think I get what women are fantasizing about when they're drooling on the cover of a bodice-buster; it's about power. The control with which he did that, the whole time he was getting me naked, the only thing I was aware of was what he was doing with his mouth and tongue. by the time he was done, my nerves were zinging from my brain to my balls to the soles of my feet. I was a roman candle with a lit fuse. I was a rocket and the countdown was on. I begged him to suck me. He wouldn't do it.

He hooked an arm under me, lifted me and slipped cushions under my ass, forcing my legs apart. My cock was nosing the air and he worked his way down to it, slowly. Too slowly. He was kissing me everywhere but there. I could hear him growling and moaning. Bastard was gnawing on the insides of my thighs. I tried to push his head. Like trying to sift a boulder.

The only thing I could do was take hold of myself but he took hold of my hands, muttering something about dessert, and held them down. I could have kicked him. I think I did kick him, and wound up knocking the cushions on the floor. Then he bumped my ass on his knees and spread my legs, which gave him everything on a platter, so to speak. And which I'm still trying to figure out how he did because, as I said, he had hold of my hands. I wasn't particularly worried about it at that moment, though, because he was nibbling, nuzzling and sucking everything—and, I mean, everywhere. I stopped struggling; that level of intimacy was a whole new magnitude of new and different. I felt his teeth prick the thinnest, most tender skin. A hot dribble of something ran down my ass, but it didn't matter because, suddenly, I had the rhythm and time stopped. He sucked and every pull of his mouth drew me with it, higher and higher. The sound of blood rushing in my ears grew louder and louder, until I was on the verge of coming. He knew the moment. His mouth closed over my cock, hot and wet, bringing sweet release in a magnificent slow eruption. He rocked with me through it, and cradled me until it was over.

There's a fragile moment, when it's over, that the merest whisper of breath on your balls can be painful. St. John didn't move; didn't even breathe. When I was capable of coherent thought again, and the weight on my thighs was getting heavy, I thought of stroking his hair. He lifted his head at the touch. "Getting a cramp?" I swear he was beautiful, with his cheeks and lips red with passion.

"No. Just sleepy."

St. John got up and pulled me up, then sat down, put his arms around me and held me against his chest. "So to sleep," he said, and buried his face in my hair. I could feel his breath. It was cool. "You smelled so good," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry." I was drifting out on a dark velvet tide, but I made an effort to reach up and pat his cheek. Been there. God knows, I've been there...

Next thing I remember, St. John's trying to get me to wake up. "C'mon, Danno. Jeepers creepers let me see those peepers."

_Danno?_

I pried my eyes open to ask who the rat was. Then I smelled the garlic and the onions and figured we must have decided to order out.

"Pizza?" I sat up.

"Drink this." Mick wrapped my hand around a bottle.

I was thirsty. It smelled like beer. Then I realized what it tasted like. "Yuk." I tried to hand it back to him.

"Finish it."

"Who died and left you in charge?"

"Finish it!" I finished it. "I'll get you another."

"No. 'S okay…" I slid back down and closed my eyes. Given a choice between drinking emulsified sweatsocks and going back to sleep, sleep's going to win, every time. "I'm good."

"I don't think he likes the porter, Mick. Maybe he could used a little of the hair of the dog that bit him."

"Josef, go away. I'm not in the mood, and I'm not going to argue.

I opened my eyes and there was this delicious blond guy sitting in one of the chairs at the dining table. He had his elbows on the table, and his chin on his fist, and he was enjoying himself. I figured he was the pizza guy. "You need a tip?" I was pretty fuzzy, and started feeling around for my pockets.

That's when I realized I didn't have any pants on, among other things.

Pizza guy stands up, laughing, and says, "It's been taken care of, freshie. Believe me; this has almost been worth every minute of the massive amount of incredible inconvenience I have been put to tonight. Almost." He pulled a heavy envelope out of his breast pocket, dropped it on the table. "Mick, I'm happy for you. Maybe even a little jealous, but that would be admitting something I don't want to think about. Next time, either share, or call _Papa John_'s."

I could hear him whistling _Strangers in the Night _until the door slammed.


	3. Chapter 3

This Gun's For Hire: Chapter 3

"They should pay those guys better," I said, when St. John came back.

"That one makes out." St. John popped the cap on another bottle of horse piss, and started with it towards me.

"Don't even," I said, looking around for a pillow, or lamp to throw at him.

"What did I say about not arguing?"

We worked it out—I agreed to drink the stuff, and he agreed not to break my arm.

Supposedly, that shit is famous for strengthening the blood and it either packs a hell of a wallop or I was coming down with something. I sort of passed out in his arms again. I remember getting up to pee at one point and ricocheting off of the furniture until he caught me and walked me to the powder room.

After that I slept pretty much the rest of the night through.

When I woke up St. John was proving that he couldn't boil water or scramble eggs. I had to get up in self-defense. Remember that pizza? Cold pizza is seriously the breakfast of champions, but St. John said he didn't know if it would have been any good for me and thrown it away. He didn't save even one slice. He'd gone out for groceries! The man actually paid money for a can of Spam! He might make a half-decent nurse, in another life, but don't let him near the kitchen. At least the coffee was drinkable. That was because I made it.

There you pretty much have it. I'm not going to describe how we said good-bye; it's none of your business, irrelevant and, anyway, I barely time had time to hustle back to the hotel and make my home-bound flight.

I was expecting McGarrett to meet me outside the terminal, but when I stepped out of the jet way I found Himself lounging in a seat by the door. Legs stretched straight out and crossed, arms clamped over his chest and the scrinch doing the tight V—a full-body scowl, in other words. I had no idea what had been going on while I was gone, but it was obvious that he'd been living in that blue t-shirt for more than a day and hadn't shaved or showered in two.

"That's taking gross advantage of your security clearance." He blinked and the tip of his nose turned red. Anybody else and you'd assume they were tearing up. I dropped my carry-on and spread my arms. "C'mere you."

He came to my arms and, braced against me, I could feel the tension of his body. "Bad night?" His head shook against my shoulder. "The squad?"

"The squad's fine."

"Then let's go home," I said. Anything else we could deal with later.

We made it to the fourth floor of the parking garage. He had parked at the back. There were only few other cars and no one around. As we passed into the shadow of a support strut with No. 7 painted on it, he slams me against the cold cement. Not a word. He gets a knee between my legs and hoists me up on it. He can kiss me that way without having to bend his stiff neck.

I think he meant to grab a hard fast kiss and let me go, except, with my arms full of his him and all the complicated smell of him in my head, I didn't want to let go, even if my face was being scraping raw. I love the feel of his body staining against me and him breathing hot and heavy in my ear. Then, suddenly, he was trying not to cry. It's the work. It takes you that way sometimes. There was nothing for it but to hold on and, shortly, he was crying for reasons that I hope the security cameras didn't pick up. It was some time before we could walk to the car and climb in like civilized human beings.

We made it to the house without further incident and, looking back, turned out I had good reason to be glad it happened like that. First thing both of us did when we got home was fall in the shower. What I mean is that McGarrett fell into the shower; I'd caught a quick one at the hotel before I left and wanted a beer, first.

After it was my turn, I climbed out of the tub into his arms and got a working over with a big fluffy towel. It was a very intimate working over, and that's how we discovered, both of us, at the same time, that I had a an ugly hickey where it couldn't have been accident and, also, where I couldn't blame it on my acupuncturist. (For one thing, I don't have an acupuncturist. For another, it would have had to be the kind of acupuncturist who gives extremely personal massages on the side.)

I might have confessed, except the McGarrett conscience goes from zero to guilty in sixty seconds. Makes Mario Andretti look like a piker. He leapt to the conclusion that he'd pinched my thigh when he hooked me up on his knee. I let him kiss it all better.

Afterward, when he was curled up against, and I was on the verge of falling asleep, I thought about those single malts that I'd tasted with St. John. Each one of them had been as smooth and bright as the last of gleam of a California sunset. They were good, but there's something addictive about the raw rush of moonshine, even if it does fuck you up sometimes.

I realized that I was never going to tell him about St. John. For one thing, it would have been too hard. For another, I would have sounded like an idiot. And lastly, what happens between two people, when it's over, should stay between those two people. It didn't make a damn bit of difference to my feelings for McGarrett. I love him. He didn't need to know anything else.

You think that's the end?

It should have been. And it would have been, except, one evening a few months later, I happened to swing by _Chez_ McGarrett and found my man, sitting at the kitchen table, brooding over a packet of legal looking papers. I assumed they were something to do with settling Jack's estate, which, by the way, was turning into a nightmare.

I helped myself to a beer and sat down prepared to commiserate.

Without saying a word, he slid a piece of paper across the polished wood with one finger. I picked it up. It was a certified check and when I could get my lips to work again, I said, "I don't think I've never seen that many zeros in my life."

"Me neither," McGarrett said. "Mary Ann called. She got one, too."

"You guys didn't sell out to that land shark, did you?"

"No way." He shook his head. "Have you ever heard of a secret trust?"

"No. But it sounds suspiciously suspicious. Tell me."

"Straight up. Sort of. Used to be, if someone wanted to leave money to someone—support for a mistress, or an illegitimate child, and didn't want everyone in the world to find out about it—not embarrass the family, in other words—they would create a secret trust that didn't have to be disclosed in the will. Mary Ann and I are the beneficiaries of a trust that was set up for the descendants of this guy." McGarrett pushed another paper across the table; a photocopy of an old photograph. The guy in it was wearing a dark navy uniform. The flat-topped cap on his head was cocked over his forehead and the ribbon around it read US Navy.

"Who is this?"

"Gilbert Michael St. John, apothecary's mate on the _USS Supply_. Danno, I never knew any of my grandfather's relatives. Dad never said anything about there being any. I asked Jenna to poke around and see what she could find out."

I looked more at the picture. It was one of those old portraits where the eyes, if the sitter has blue eyes, look as clear as glass. The guy was good looking, if you like them lean and hawkish, which I do. He seemed oddly familiar, as well. You know that sick sinking feeling, you get? I ignored it.

"What did she find out?"

"That_ Supply_ was stationed in the Pacific during the First World War. She was definitely in Honolulu harbor over Christmas 1917. I bit the bullet and pulled a copy my grandfather's birth certificate. This guy is my great-grandfather."

"At least he was Navy." I couldn't help pointing that out. McGarrett snorted.

"After the war, he settled in California. He farmed, but there's no evidence that he ever made any real money."Steve flicked the check with all the zeros on it. "This was issued by a firm called Constantine Investment Management. I asked Jenna to probe that as well."

"And Constantine Investment Management is…?"

"A family office."

"You know you're frustrating me."

"A family office is like a very private bank. It usually acts as a wealth manager for one rich family. Sometimes, as in this case, it acts for multiple clients. This one has been around since the 19th century. It used to be called called the Kostan Trust. And that was as far as Jenna got. A gentleman who said his name was Josef Kostan called me this afternoon and asked me, very nicely, to please stop trying to hack their servers."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Embarrassing. I flat out asked him what the story was. He told me the trust had been set up by this guy's son, who wanted to make things right, but they hadn't known how to find any other descendants, until recently. That was all he was authorized to tell me."

"So it was this guy's son who made a pile of money."

"Apparently. I don't see how, though. The other thing Jenna turned up was that the son was some kind of musician who disappeared in 1952. He'd have to be dead, by now."

"Maybe not." I think. My mouth was rattling along on its own, all by itself, disconnected from my brain. "Maybe he changed his name, moved to Australia, and struck it rich in the opal mines. Maybe he got married and had a kid, and his kid had a kid, and you've got a cousin with hellaciously stubborn Scotch-Irish genes. It's possible. Or, maybe, out there, somewhere, you've got this Great Uncle Mick, who is looking out for you. He'd be like 90, but it's possible..."

"92," McGarrett said. "How did you know his name?"

"Lucky guess—Gilbert Michael—Michael—Mick..." Fortunately, I ran out of steam, because McGarrett was giving me the oddest look, and no wonder. I was starting to feel odd as well, remembering a blue eyed man I'd seen in a picture…he and his wife, standing on a porch that needed paint, and a little boy on a wooden horse.

"You want another beer?" I said._ Because I could sure use another._ "We need to celebrate..."


	4. Chapter 4

This Gun's Hire: Chapter 4

Yesterday I was listening to a rightwing nut-job on the radio, going on about how homosexuality is unnatural. He said that if it's legalized it will destroy the moral fiber of America.

I want to know how it's gonna do that. How's it gonna do that? Because you want to know what's unnatural? I'll tell you what's unnatural. Sleeping alone is unnatural. That's why I sleep with the television on.

Only when I'm forced to, understand. Some people don't like it. They're sensitive to noise or something, and I get that, but I need to feel the sound of something human near. When I haven't got anything else, the television keeps me from getting antsy. But it's not the same as spooning up to a warm body and feeling him snuggle back. Which is why, when I woke up groping an empty spot and the clock telling me it was 4a.m., I had to get out of bed and see what was going on.

I checked the lanai. He wasn't out there. I looked downstairs. He wasn't there. That left the beach and I hate walking down there barefoot. There might be snakes lurking in the grass. You may think there are no snakes in Hawaii, but there are. They fall out of the wheel wells of planes.

Of course, that was where I found him, slouched in a beach chair with his feet buried in the sand. The chairs are low, but they have arms wide enough to sit on. He put his head on my thigh. I rubbed his shoulders. The moon wasn't up, but there were lots of stars wheeling around. You could hear the wind rustling in the trees and the waves sloshing around the big chunk of concrete that sits out in the water. You can see it when the tide's out. It was left over from the war, and no one's ever bothered to remove it.

It's ugly, with loops of rusty rebar sticking out of it, but it's the reason that McGarrett owns a house with a private beach and a belt of old trees that cut off the sight and sound of the seventy odd years of development surrounding it. But in 1942 there was nothing and, if the islands had been invaded, that swath of shoreline would have been an ideal place for Japanese to come ashore. The guy who owned it couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

Steve's grandmother had been a young widow with more confidence in the United States Navy. When she bought it, the house was surrounded by it nothing but pineapple fields. Now, although you can't see it, the highway is only half a mile away. Property values have gone up. So have taxes and what cost pennies in 1942 is worth a fortune to developers. That's part of the problem.

"I'm losing too much sleep," I said. "Tomorrow you're going to take that check to the bank, and deposit it. Then you're going to take the letter from Kostan down to IA, and tell them all about it."

"They'll poke into it," McGarrett said. I noticed that he didn't say he wasn't going to do it.

"So, what if they do? They'll find as much as we did—some mysterious uncle left you a packet of money—all legit. I bet that Kostan fellow could handle Internal Affairs with both hands tied behind his back." That earned me a muffled chuckle. That Kostan fellow had certainly handled both McGarrett and Jenna when they were trying to snoop. "Come on back to bed," I said.

"Sun's almost up," he said.

"Are you crazy? It's the middle of the night."

"I'm hungry."

"I've got something you can eat." I stood, stand up and pulling him up with me. "Don't worry; there won't be any crumbs to get in the sheets."

He let me haul him back to the bedroom, where I encouraged him to perform an unnatural act that had the effect of making him sleepy, and me happy twice over. Believe me, if he had turned all broody I wouldn't have been able put up with it.

His father's death had hit him hard. Having the investigation peter out the way it had was almost as bad. And did I mention that trying to settle the estate had turned into a nightmare?

I am not kidding.

Jack McGarrett had tried to play fair with his kids. He had settled the invested money from their mother's life-insurance on Mary Ann, and he had left the property to Steve. It was a pretty equal split when the will had been drawn up. Then in the course of investigating his wife's murder, Jack uncovered evidence of corruption at the highest levels.

Investigating without legal connections and support, probing into the governor of Hawaii's personal relationships, and the backgrounds of her business associates, without attracting attention? It would have been impossible to do alone. The discreet help that he would have needed doesn't come cheap, or legal. Apparently he had needed money, a lot of money. He had mortgaged the property. A year later he had been killed. Talk about a mess you couldn't clean up on a cop's salary.

There hadn't been a hint in the papers that he had turned over to the probate lawyer. The way Steve found out about it was a letter from the bank.

My guy was looking at losing his home, when that check with all the zeros arrived.

That much money lands in your lap out of the blue, most people will turn cartwheels. Not Steve McGarrett. He doesn't trust luck at the best of times. The check was still sitting where it had been sitting, un-deposited, in an envelope in the top left drawer of his father's old desk for the last two months. I was fed up.

TBC


End file.
